Old Man's War

I recently finished reading Old Man's War by John Scalzi. Scalzi is one of those writers whom I get confused with another quite easily, like Garth Ennis and Warren Ellis. In this case, I often passed up reading Old Man's War because I confused it with Joe Haldeman's Forever War. Perhaps there is something to editor's fears of using too-similar titles! The premise of Old Man's War is intriguing - it is seldom that a scene about military recruiting is mysterious. Once our hero has signed up, the training sequences are pure Heinlein, the right mixture of jingoism (to fire up the troops) and pragmatism (to aid in the troops' survival). The aliens are lightly sketched, but distinct enough to qualify as separate species. The anthropophagous deer and bellicose Lilliputians are particularly striking choices.

I highly recommend.